You are right. I was looking through extinct volcano, and saw this:  const cmpWaterManager = Engine.QueryInterface(SYSTEM_ENTITY, IID_WaterManager);     const newLevel = cmpWaterManager.GetWaterLevel() + waterLevelIncreaseHeight;     cmpWaterManager.SetWaterLevel(newLevel);      this.DebugLog("Raising water level to " + Math.round(newLevel) + " took " + (cmpTimer.GetTime() - time)); maybe we can change it to light manager or something

I’m not sure whether you’re aware of what kind of automation is actually being discussed. I agree that you can’t really say one thing is better than another, or that one approach is “how it should be” and the other isn’t. In the end, it comes down to consensus about what a community wants or accepts as valid and what it doesn’t. The case of AoE2 is quite illustrative: a feature like 0 A.D.’s vanilla auto-queue is considered cheating in the multiplayer scene. Is that right or wrong? That’s not really the point. The real question is whether there is a broad consensus around one gameplay mechanic or another. The issue is that, when playing against a human opponent, the sense of fair play matters. Whether certain features are accepted or not is part of an ongoing discussion and a necessary consensus in any community. This debate has been going on for years and has been approached in different ways. Some have led to a good, inclusive understanding despite disagreements. In other cases, things like this happen, where someone shows up out of nowhere and starts treating everyone like id**ts, and nothing productive can come out of that.

These rants were hilarious to read. I never used auto-queue in other games, but once I started using in 0 AD, I liked it, and now I get annoyed when I have to set it up again because I run out of resources for a few seconds, so I get where the proposal comes from. But this attitude of “this is the only right way, look at this picture and implement it” is going to go nowhere. I disagree that these automation things are letting “the game play for you”, it would be a poor game if clicking on portraits is such a big part of it, I think better if it concentrates its complexity in other aspects, but maybe since tactics is not a big thing yet that’s how players find the fun. I think AoE2’s auto-scout resembles more letting the game play for you. I guess I used it back then, but I haven’t missed it in 0 AD. So, it’s all a matter of balance, it’s not about what’s better or worse, just different kinds of games are being proposed, and as someone said, “if you remove mechanical requirements, you need to add complexity elsewhere”. Many arguments are being made on the basis of competitive clickiness, but it’s wrong to think that’s the only right way to play a game, and even an online game could be challenging and fun with less clickiness and more thinking. It’s just a choice, but I think many more people prefer the latter, the impression here of course will be the opposite because of a biased selection: online-players are actually a minority, they just seem overrepresented online for obvious reasons.

That's definitely interesting and the first time somebody reported this problem. Can you please send me a private message with the lobby username of your friend so I can have a look if we got something in the logs for these connection attempts?

Yes, @Stan` said he'll try to sign it this week.